Tuesday, 15 September 2015

This wasn’t going to be my next blog post.A while ago I sat down to write to answer
tough questions.Questions like “is it
okay to kill one person to save two more lives?” (Not to be confused with the
question I already answered:Is There aTime to Kill?)I had two pages of
writing completed before I began to realize how daunting the task in front of
me really was.

I see
things, particularly moral issues, as very black and white.I don’t believe in moral grey areas.An absolute truth exists because it is the
answer God would give.While this
attitude helps me a great deal in life, it also means I am more bothered when
the absolute right answer isn’t immediately apparent.

I can
give you many different examples of things in my life that I discovered to be
not as straightforward as I initially believed.Depression can be attributed to chemical imbalances in the brain and not
just one’s attitude; the entire theory of evolution may not necessarily be
hogwash; giving money to the poor isn’t always the most helpful.

One of
my favourite things to simplify (because, let’s face it, it’s something that
really should be simple) is the
sexuality of humans.I’ve been known to
post things along the lines of “God made us male and female, not male, female,
and miscellaneous” and “getting a sex change is like saying you know better
than God does.”It wasn’t uncommon for
me to back up my point by saying quite matter-of-factly “one sex has XY
chromosomes and one sex has XX chromosomes.All one has to do is test the chromosomes in order to figure out what
sex they are.”(Not that I ever really
had any idea how one actually tested to identify chromosomes.)Hard to argue with science.

I
watched a video (which I posted a link to above) that showed that there were more than
just XX and XY chromosomes.

People
are born with both female and male anatomy.

I can
open up the bible and point to homosexuality being wrong.I can use the bible to argue against sex
changes.What I cannot do is open up the
bible to figure out what sex someone is when it isn’t immediately apparent
through a scientific lens.

We are
not at a dead end though; we are not stuck in a moral/sexual limbo where no
truth can speak to the situation; we are not left to just do whatever we feel
like.I want to assure readers of very
valuable truths:

1. What Pain Tells
Us.

It
would seem a cruel God that would destine certain people to be unsure of their
sexuality.Out of the physical gifts God
has given us, it could be argued that sexuality and marriage is at the top of
the list.Having access to this gift
taken away from us from the very start seems to be very unloving.

The
same thing is said about a God who would allow pain in general to be in the
world.It seems unloving, but is it
really?

Pain in
itself is not evil or unloving.It is a
symptom that something is wrong.Someone
who can feel the pain of a burn may be in agony, but someone who cannot feel
the pain will not know if they are unknowingly harming their body with
excessive heat.

God
gave us pain more than just to show us that there is something wrong with the
state of the world as it is. He is also
using it to give our relationship with him more meaning.If we didn’t understand pain, we would have a
lesser understanding of how God feels when we offend Him; we wouldn’t be able
to relate as well to the pain we put Him through with our disobedience.

If we
didn’t have pain, we wouldn’t be able to see that we are harming ourselves, and
we wouldn’t have the same level of relationship with God available to us.

2.Jesus was a single man.

It may
still seem unfair for God to make some people unsure of where they should stand
sexually when the vast majority do not have this problem.After all, to many the greatest physical
pleasure comes through a healthy marriage.

But
there is more people than one might think of that do not have the pleasure of marriage
available to them.There are those who
die young or isolated who miss out on it too.Plus there are the people like me who have simply yet to meet someone
they wish to form a relationship with.

Surely
the meaning of life must entail more than just reaching a healthy marriage, or
many of us would have meaningless lives, including Jesus.He lived the perfect life, and he was
single.He understood the physical
hardships of being single, and he chose the path anyway.

Single
Christians living in obedience to God do not have sex before marriage.We set aside the benefits of a physical
relationship for the even greater benefit of having a healthy relationship with
God.

3.There will be no marriage in Heaven.

Matthew 22:30 – At the
resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be
like the angels in heaven.

One of
the greatest gifts God has given us for our Earthly life is marriage, so it’s
quite significant that it won’t exist in Heaven.

Although there is nothing wrong
with marriage and it is often a noble pursuit, there is little use being
frustrated if it seems to be unattainable.It would only last a short time in the grand scheme of eternity anyway.Plus, if there is no marriage in Heaven, I
don’t think I am going out on a limb in saying that it will be replaced by an
even greater joy. If we will be like the angels in
Heaven, does that imply more than simply the lack of marriage?Perhaps this is just conjecture, but I
believe if we will be like the angels, we will have spiritual bodies and not
physical bodies.Without the need for a
physical form, there won’t be a need to have a physical gender.

4.God made you, and God doesn’t make mistakes.

Psalm 139:13-14 – For you created
my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

John 3:16 – For God so loved the
world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should
not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 – But God demonstrates
his own love for us in this:while we
were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Sometimes our physical flaws lead
us to be tempted to believe that God doesn’t care about us.But God wouldn’t love and die for something
that had no value to him.

5.At the end of the day, we still have a job to
do.

The
less goes my way, the easier it is for me to be reminded that my life isn’t
meant to be all about me.God did not
create us to live selfishly.God made us
to glorify him.

God has
a plan for us, regardless of who we are.It’s our responsibility to trust in him.

Romans 8:28 – And we know that in
all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose.